Most people would remember Inception – the mind-bending, dream-within-a-dream film written, directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan. Released in 2010 to huge commercial success, it won four Academy Awards in 2011 and grossed over US $828 million in box offices worldwide.

Inception is essentially a film about corporate espionage. It tells the story of Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who extracts corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology. One day, he is offered a job by a Japanese businessman to do the reverse — plant an idea into the mind of a rival CEO to dissolve his dying father’s company and break up a long-standing monopoly.

Cobb assembles a team of six, including an architect to design the dream world, a chemist to administer sedatives for a stable dream state, and an impersonator to manipulate the victim. Apart from the brilliant visual effects and powerful music score, Inception’s storyline sends this important message to audiences: The mind is powerful and is able to determine a person’s future.

It all begins with the mind

The word “inception” comes from the root word to incept, meaning to begin, to start or to establish something. In the film, Dom Cobb compares an idea to a virus – small, resilient and highly contagious. Once it takes hold in a person’s brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.

And so the team hatch a four-level strategy to plant these ideas – level by level – into their victim Robert Fischer’s mind:

• Level 1: “I will not follow in my father’s footsteps”
• Level 2: “I will create something for myself”
• Level 3: “My father doesn’t want me to be him”
• Level 4: “I will dissolve my father’s empire”

The next 90 minutes of the film moves quickly in a complex maze of kidnaps, robberies and shootouts – all cleverly designed to manipulate Fischer, set the scene and provide context for the thoughts to be planted.

The job is carried out en-route an 18-hour flight when all are put to sleep to carry out the task in the dream world. The mission is a success and over the coming days and weeks, the thoughts implanted in Fischer’s subconscious will start to take root, grow organically and translate into the desired outcomes.

Our minds determine our future

The inception process is complex, dangerous, and requires much strategy, engineering and physicality. In the same way Cobb and his team went to great lengths to plant a seed into their victim’s mind, our enemy, the Devil, has a similar modus operandi.

The Bible calls him a thief (John 10:10), a liar (John 8:44) and very crafty (Genesis 3:1). He “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). But far from being a physical lion waging a physical attack, the enemy assaults us first in the mind.

Before the mission begins, Cobb warns his client on the gravity of his request: “The seed that we plant in this man’s mind will grow into an idea. This idea will come to define him, and it may come to change everything about him.”

Our thoughts are so powerful that they are able to determine the course of our lives.

Why is this important for us to understand? The Bible also talks about how the enemy wages a spiritual war against us in the mind. To overcome this, we have to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) and to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Inception may be a science-fiction thriller, but the movie reflects the fact that our thoughts can affect our actions and shape who we become.

Cobb says in the film: “The smallest seed of an idea can grow, and it can grow to define or destroy you.” Towards the end of the film, we realise the reason why Dom Cobb’s wife died, is because he planted the idea in her mind that her world wasn’t real – after she confused the dream world with her real one. 

Our thoughts are so powerful that they are able to determine the course of our lives. May we always be alert and sober-minded, guarding our minds vigilantly against any seemingly random or negative thoughts that are not submitted to Christ.

“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)